Chapter 10: Diamondhead
The morning sun beat down mercilessly on the desolate wasteland, baking the cracked earth. Nothing grew out here but stubborn, twisted cacti, surrounded by endless stretches of coarse sand and jagged stones. The Rustbucket sat parked in the middle of nowhere, its metal hull radiating heat.
Grandpa Max stood behind a makeshift wooden contraption, his hands resting on a series of mechanical levers. A few yards away stood Ben, already transformed into Diamondhead.
Max yanked the first lever on the left. A barrage of empty tin cans launched into the air. Diamondhead didn't even flinch. He raised his arms, firing a volley of razor-sharp crystal shards that sliced the cans to ribbons before they could hit the dirt.
Max pulled the second lever. Several wooden targets popped up from the dust. Diamondhead dropped into a roll, took a knee to steady his aim, and fired with sniper-like precision, burying a crystal deep into the center of each target.
Lounging in a folding chair beside the RV, Gwen slathered SPF fifty onto her arms. "Show-off," she muttered, adjusting her sunglasses.
Max pulled the right lever. A heavy rubber tire swung down from a hidden rig behind the Petrosapien. It slammed hard into Diamondhead's back just as he stood up. Knocked completely off balance, he stumbled forward, airborne and flailing. A wild spray of crystalline projectiles shot from his hands, hurtling directly toward the Rustbucket—and Gwen.
The deadly shards froze inches from Gwen's face, suspended in mid-air by a shimmering aura of purple energy.
Klein sat in the chair beside Gwen, his hand casually raised. "Dweeb! What are you doing now?" he called out, dropping his hand. The shards clattered harmlessly into the dust.
"My bad!" Ben yelled, rubbing the back of his crystalline neck.
Klein sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Ben, you need to learn to think."
He had originally considered sparring with his cousin himself, but the power gap was simply too wide. Klein's physical baseline was already absurd for his age, and his version of the alien transformations vastly outclassed Ben's. It wouldn't be a training session; it would be a one-sided beatdown. Anyone with overwhelming power could crush Ben right now, and Klein certainly wasn't going to transform into Grey Matter just to make a fistfight with Four Arms fair. It felt entirely unnecessary.
"Listen to your cousin, Ben," Grandpa Max said, walking out from behind the wooden rig. "Transforming into an alien hero is not a game. You can't just rely on raw power levels; you have to understand the unique characteristics of each alien."
Diamondhead crossed his arms, the sunlight glinting off his chest. "Relax! Four Arms and Diamondhead can easily flatten any of those alien freaks." His casual stance made it clear he wasn't taking the lecture to heart.
...
Max had intended to pack up and head to their next stop, but the engine refused to turn over. Stranded in the heat, they had no choice but to wait.
Standing in front of the Rustbucket with the hood propped open, Max wiped grease from his brow. "Found the culprit. A leaking oil pipe." He held up the severed rubber hose. A jagged piece of petrosapien crystal was wedged straight through the center of it.
Ben chuckled, a nervous, grating sound.
...
Since they weren't going anywhere anytime soon, Klein, Ben, and Gwen decided to take a walk to pass the time.
As the three of them wandered aimlessly through the shimmering heatwaves of the Gobi desert, a heavy, mechanical grinding noise echoed across the rocks. It sounded like a massive industrial drill tearing through the earth.
The ground erupted.
A massive, golden mechanical crab burst from the crater, its single optic glowing with lethal intent. "Hand over the Omnitrix!"
Ben grinned, slamming his fists together. "Freak! You want this? Come and get it! It's hero time!" He slapped the dial.
A flash of emerald light washed over the desert, and Diamondhead stood in Ben's place, charging forward.
Klein yawned, tapping the face of his Another Omnitrix. He didn't really care about these mass-produced bounty hunters—in his eyes, the only difference between this crab and Vilgax's standard drones was the paint job and the size. They were all equally weak. Still, he was bored.
"Big Chill!"
The desert heat vanished, replaced by a biting, localized winter as Klein shifted into a moth-like phantom wrapped in dark blue wings.
Kraab stepped back, his mechanical claws clicking in surprise. "Two Omnitrixes!" His processors whirred, calculating a double bounty. His ship's tracker had only picked up one signal, completely failing to detect Klein's advanced watch, which actively masked its energy signature. To the bounty hunter's outdated tech, Earth was just one massive grid, and landing anywhere in the same state was considered a precision drop.
Before Diamondhead could even reach the crab, a massive figure clad in heavy black armor slammed into him from the side, tackling him into the dirt.
"He's mine!" the armored man barked at the crab.
Kraab raised his plasma cannon, insulted by the sudden interference from his supposed ally. But before the crab could fire, a blast of absolute zero washed over him. Big Chill hovered above, exhaling a thick, white mist. In seconds, the golden cyborg was frozen solid, trapped as a glittering ice sculpture.
"Mass-produced junk," Big Chill's icy, echoing voice drifted down. "Too weak."
"Cousin, watch out!" Gwen screamed.
Sixsix jetted out of the sky, dual blades drawn, diving straight for Big Chill's back.
Klein didn't even turn around. His body turned completely transparent. Sixsix slashed through empty air, his momentum carrying him right through the Necrofriggian's phantom form. The moment he passed through, a layer of biting frost coated Sixsix's armor.
It wasn't a deep freeze like the mist, and Sixsix quickly shook it off, revving his jetpack to turn around. Big Chill raised a hand to finish the job, but Gwen stepped forward.
"Cousin, he's mine!"
Her skin dissolved into pure, crackling purple mana. Her hair flared upward like violet fire. She had shifted entirely into her Anodite form, the air around her humming with raw power.
Big Chill lowered his hand and floated back. He didn't know exactly what set her off, but he knew better than to interfere. There were few things in the universe more dangerous than an angry woman, especially an Anodite.
Sixsix realized his mistake too late. Though Gwen had only recently unlocked her Anodite form, her race remained one of the most terrifyingly powerful in the cosmos. She unleashed a torrent of mana, physically dominating the bounty hunter, slamming him into the ground and dragging him through the rocks. His mechanical screams echoed across the desert.
A short distance away, Ben was getting dismantled. The armored bounty hunter was parrying every crystal strike, countering with brutal, calculated blows that sent Diamondhead crashing into the dirt over and over again.
Big Chill drifted over to intervene.
The armored man glanced up, scoffing at the floating alien. "Kid, do you want a beating too?" He clearly thought Klein was just another lucky brat who had stumbled onto a weapon.
Big Chill's eyes narrowed. The temperature plummeted.
A few seconds later, the armored man was flat on his back, groaning in pain, his armor dented and covered in heavy rime ice. Klein raised his foot to finish the fight, but Ben scrambled up from the dirt.
"Cousin, wait! He's not an enemy!"
Big Chill paused, staring at Ben. He had just watched this guy beat Ben to a pulp, and now Ben was defending him? Klein shook his head, wondering if his cousin had developed some sort of masochistic complex. If Ben hadn't yelled, Klein would have shattered the guy's armor completely.
The frozen crab remained completely immobilized nearby. Even in the scorching summer heat, Big Chill's ice was not something a low-tier bounty hunter could break out of.
The armored man coughed, clutching his ribs as he slowly pushed himself up. His helmet retracted, revealing the jagged crystal features of an older Petrosapien.
"Cough... alright," the older Petrosapien wheezed, looking at Big Chill. "You're Klein, right? I believe you can protect the Omnitrix well. With you around, that kid over there probably won't lose his either."
He turned to Ben. "Ben, right? No matter what, you saved my life. This is for you." He unclipped a sleek, metallic hoverboard from his back and tossed it over.
Ben caught it, his eyes widening. "A hoverboard! Cool!"
The older Petrosapien turned and began to walk away, his steps slightly unsteady from the beating Klein had handed him.
"Wait!" Ben called out, looking up from the board. "Without a hoverboard, how will you leave Earth?"
"I have my ways. Until next time," he replied, walking away without looking back.
The older Petrosapien achieved his goal, Klein successfully found some fun, Ben obtained a hoverboard, and Gwen successfully vented her anger. Everyone was happy.
Only Sixsix suffered. The battered bounty hunter lay half-buried in the sand, his armor sparking and smoking. He weakly raised a trembling hand toward the retreating Petrosapien, silently begging for help. The older Petrosapien didn't even glance his way. Sixsix's arm dropped powerlessly into the dirt, his broken body shutting down, seemingly not long for this world.
A horn honked. The Rustbucket rolled over the dunes and idled nearby. Grandpa Max leaned out the driver's side window. "Everyone, we're hitting the road!"
Before boarding the RV, Big Chill drifted over to the frozen Kraab. He exhaled one more concentrated blast of ice, thickening the block until it was completely impenetrable, and then casually kicked the massive ice cube into an abandoned warehouse nearby.
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